Our view: Oneida County clerk should get with times

Oneida County Clerk Sandra DePerno has been battling the issue of placing records online for nearly two years.

Last week, DePerno said an index of real estate-related records has been put online, but the actual images of those documents have not.

That’s not good enough.

The data base is only a partial help to people in their quest to obtain information about a certain record — like if it exists. The actual documents, with personal information redacted, should be put online as well to best serve the public.

DePerno’s argument is the same tired one she’s been using since she was elected county clerk — stating as her election platform that she was not going to have public records containing personal information on the Internet.

“If someone gets their identity stolen, it will not be because of something that was put online by my office,” she said.

Nobody’s asking her to put personal information such as social security numbers online. All the public needs are the records. She can redact the personal information.

Not providing the information online is regressive and does a disservice to taxpayers who must waste their time and money traveling down to the courthouse to obtain more detailed information.

Neighboring counties have embraced the concept of public records and there has been very little issue with it.

For example, in Broome County, Clerk Richard Blythe has about 1.4 million records — going back to 1964 — available online, he said. When a Social Security number or other sensitive information is discovered in one of the documents, his staff redacts it.

In Cortland County, records are going online, and rarely is anything redacted, county Clerk Elizabeth Larkin said.

Regardless of how the information is handled, one thing is very clear — those counties feel the actual images of the documents should go online, and they are right.

DePerno needs to get Oneida County records online. She was elected to the clerk position to best serve the public.

To do that, records must be available to the public — in person and online.